


until the sound of my voice will haunt you

by asexualizing (Specialcookies)



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Almost Famous still owns this ass etc etc, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Debbie is a music journalist, F/F, Lou is a musician, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Specialcookies/pseuds/asexualizing
Summary: They started near Atlantic City.“I’m not sure where we’re heading,” Lou told her, picking nervously on the guitar. Debbie thought she recognized the tune, but Lou botched it so completely, leaving the strings out of tune on purpose, that Debbie really couldn’t tell.She drew the blinds shut, turned to look at Lou, whose head was ducked and whose fingers slid here and there on the fretboard, eclectic. “Doesn’t matter."Lou Miller is a rising name in the Indie-Rock scene. Debbie Ocean writes about her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a long time ago an anon asked for the prompt "I'm so in love with you" from the prompt list. For some reason this fic was conceived. I wanted to post it originally as a one 20K or so piece but I think it needs to start seeing the light, so here is part 1 out of 3. 
> 
> title is from Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac
> 
> as always, huge thank you to my friend and beta Netterz <33

She finds Lou nursing a glass of whiskey in a corner of the backstage, a hand-rolled cigarette she’s strictly not allowed to light inside dangling between her fingers. She’s sitting on a set of stairs, legs spread, her foot tapping rhythmically on the floor. She’s staring blankly at the other side of the room, doesn’t notice Debbie as she makes her way to her—staccato steps in her heels, notepad clutched in one hand, pen behind her ear. She stops close enough to talk, far enough to be mindful.

Before she opens her mouth to say anything though, Lou looks up, her lips twitching halfway to a smile, halfway to a scowl. “Let’s do this outside,” she says, gets up in one swift movement, whiskey and cigarette in hand. “I’m dying for a fucking smoke.”

Debbie follows her.

“Those are gonna kill your voice,” she can’t help but comment as Lou leans against a brick wall in the back alley of the club.

Lou huffs as she lights up. “They’re gonna kill _me_ ,” she replies, leans her head back against the wall and blows smoke up, her body visibly relaxing. She side-eyes Debbie, then sips her whiskey. Debbie’s not sure she wants a reply to that, so she simply shrugs, takes her pen out from behind her ear.

“How was I in there?” Lou asks, diverts her eyes back up to the night sky, where the stars are just barely visible and the moon hides behind a cloud.

Debbie looks down at the scribbled comments on her notepad, taps her pen against it. “Tantalizing.”

She can’t see Lou, but she can hear her breathy, terse laughter. She can also feel Lou’s eyes on her, boring into her skull until Debbie’s face is heated. “Read me something,” she requests, and Debbie cannot tell her no.

“ _‘She searches for the crowd’s eyes as she sings’_ ,” Debbie begins, inhales deeply as she changes every all-too-personal _you_ in her mind. “ _‘Her low, urgent voice, more charged than any bellowing could ever be, keeps them mesmerized to her figure on the stage. Like smoke and mirrors, undoubtedly there but so dangerously close to vanishing, she stands commanding over the microphone. They all wait, breathless, for what comes next:_ ‘And it’s nothing like I ever make it seem.’ _A pause._ ‘And I’m nothing like it ever makes me seem.’ _Reverb-heavy, Delayed and twisted into a wall of sound, her guitar drowns the crowd out, and the room turns into the deepest, darkest part of the ocean_ , _’_ ” she finishes there, heart thumping almost as hard as it did when Lou played the song, and leaves the rest to die out on her page.

 _And I want to stay there,_ it reads even if she doesn’t read it out loud. _I don’t ever want to let you go._

She looks up at Lou, who’s sucking on her cigarette with her eyes shut. She watches as Lou lets her hand drop to her side, as her fingers tap against the bricks. She smells her whiskey, still silent, and Debbie almost gives in and reaches out.

Then Lou’s voice, thick and heavily accented, drawls: “You write like a Goddamn poet.”

Debbie scoffs. “Well, if I’m a poet—”

“Then I’m your muse?” Eyes opening, Lou turns her head to look at her, her lips quirked up.

Debbie stands there, tantalized. “Aren’t you the poet?”

“I’m no poet,” Lou pushes herself off the wall, takes a few steps towards Debbie until she’s practically crowding her. “Just a fucking singer.”

Looking straight into Lou’s eyes, Debbie asks, “You’re going on the record with that?” Playful, yet not enough to smolder what Lou had lit up.

“Yeah,” Lou answers, her voice just above a whisper. “Put that on the record, why not.”

“Lou Miller.” Debbie can’t help herself, clears a strand of Lou’s hair off her eyes. “Just a fucking singer.”

*

They started near Atlantic City. At the Garden State Inn, Lou grabbed her acoustic and packed the rest of her stuff inside a Toyota; she and Debbie shared a room with a queen size bed, orange carpeting, and a flat-screen TV that neither had any interest in turning on. No band, no crew, just Lou and Debbie trailing her, following the only dream she knew how to dream.

“I’m not sure where we’re heading,” Lou told her, picking nervously on the guitar. Debbie thought she recognized the tune, but Lou botched it so completely, leaving the strings out of tune on purpose, that Debbie really couldn’t tell.

She drew the blinds shut, turned to look at Lou, whose head was ducked and whose fingers slid here and there on the fretboard, eclectic. “Doesn’t matter,” Debbie replied.

Lou raised her head, flipped her fringe out of her eyes and smiled, small and teasing. “You’re out for an adventure, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Debbie returned the gesture.

Walking over to the bed, Debbie toed her shoes off, flopped down on the too-hard mattress. She settled against the pillows, turning on her side and tucking her hands underneath her head. “Play me something nice,” she said, and Lou laughed while tweaking the keys, looked down at Debbie over her shoulder as she tuned her guitar.

“By all means, I’ll take the floor,” she taunted, but then she started strumming softly, and Debbie closed her eyes.

_Let us be lovers we’ll marry our fortunes together, I’ve got some real estate here in my bag…_

“You’re terribly symbolic,” Debbie mumbled then started to drift off as Lou ignored her and kept on playing.

Through a hazy half-asleep state, Debbie could hear Lou finishing off the song, getting off the bed carefully. She could hear her putting her acoustic back in its case, could hear her stripping down to her pajamas. Could hear her whispering, “Sleep tight, girl.”

She took the floor.

The next morning, over cheap black coffee, Debbie cleared her throat, turned the recorder on, and asked, “So how did you get your first guitar?”

Leaning back in her chair and popping her gum, Lou grinned, “This is a good one…”

*

When Debbie’s editor-in-chief wanted something fresh, she’d never in a million years thought she’d go on tour with an up-and-coming name in Indie Rock. But fourteen E-mails and three weeks later, there she was, shaking hands with Lou Miller.

“You want to shadow me?” Lou asked, doubting, swirling her whiskey in its glass.

“No,” Debbie persisted. “I want to do a cover story.”

“Why on tour?”

“Because,” Debbie stretched pointedly, repeating Tammy’s words to her, “we’ve lost the narrative.”

Lou sipped her drink, held it briefly in her mouth as she examined Debbie curiously, and swallowed. “See, that’s what I don’t get,” she eventually proclaimed with a finger pointed at Debbie. “You want real, but then you build something else entirely out of it.”

Debbie tapped her fingers against the linoleum of the table. “A story’s a story.”

Lou snickered, short and sharp; shook her head. “A story’s _just_ a story.”

“Well,” Debbie tilted her head slightly. “Are you in?”

The next day, Debbie was already packing.

And now, here they are, in Austin.

They meet Nine-Ball on a street corner, toying with some home-built synthesizers. Lou stops for long minutes to listen. They’ve got one day off and she likes the girl’s vibe. She likes the girl’s sound. She sits down to jam with her, while Debbie watches, listens, scribbles, and then they all go out drinking.

Lou’s foot is pressed to Debbie’s calf throughout the whole time they sit in the pub. They get so immersed in a conversation about studio equipment that soon enough, Lou’s touch is all too natural, and just an afterthought to the way she talks with her hands about amps, considers her words carefully when replying to Debbie’s stance on acoustics, and listens intently when Nine-Ball talks about wiring.

“Come by if you get the chance,” Nine-Ball tells them, eyes moving between Lou to Debbie as she talks. “I got some sick toys to play around with.”

“Thanks,” Lou answers sincerely. “But we’re off tomorrow morning.”

When Nine-Ball leaves them with a tip for some trouble that Lou’s been having with her pedalboard, Lou leans back in her chair. Her foot slides away, and just like that, Debbie’s aware that they were touching for so long, and her body tingles at the point of contact.

*

It’s Lou’s turn on the bed tonight. Debbie sits on the single chair in their room, one leg folded up on it, notepad open on her thigh, and chews on the end of her pen while she tries to not watch Lou sleeping, snoring lightly. She sticks her earbuds in to make it easier on herself and absentmindedly scrolls down her music library. She presses her thumb carefully down and sighs as Tom Waits’ voice echoes through her head.

Staring down at a blank new page in her notepad, Debbie writes: _We’re nearing a month on the road. She’s drawing me in with her energy. In Austin, she’s jamming along with a street corner musician, unabashedly throwing her head back and singing with a smile wide on her face, like the street is where she actually belongs. In Atlanta, she takes only her acoustic up on stage, a D’Angelico Excel 63 which complements her stripped down attire for the night—one red velvet vest with nothing much underneath, a pair of tight leather pants, and sparkling red booties. She has, after all, been known to revive glamour—and gives an intensely intimate performance that leaves the crowd grasping at her voice. In Baltimore, she powers through a gig with a crackling mic as if that is the perfect situation to find herself in. She was born to live on the outskirts of the music scene, an outcast that embodies stardom so perfectly that she has no reason to live up to it._

Debbie stops, looks up just to glance, for a brief second, at Lou’s sleeping form. There are things she doesn’t write, like: _there are days she’s quiet in the car, insists on driving for as long as her body is willing, hums along to whatever’s playing like she’s suddenly shy, and she must notice the way that I stare, but she never takes her eyes off the road, and I can’t tell if she wants me gone, or if this is her way to say she’s finally comfortable with having me around._

And: _There are days I think I shouldn’t have come, because she’s right, and she is nothing like it ever makes her seem. She’s nothing I can put my finger on, not as a person—as a person, she is so refined now in my head that I forget, some days, she isn’t just a story I am writing—but as to what she means to me. I don’t know how to tell myself, but I feel, and there are days I think I shouldn’t have come, because she’s right, and we architect the truth into a different shape entirely._

And: _She is sleeping, and I can’t. Not like this. Not like now. In Austin, she had smiled at me while singing out a tune she never heard before. In Atlanta, she had asked me what I think of this melody she never played before. In Baltimore, she said, “I think I’m getting used to you,” and proceeded with her sound-check._

Tom Waits sings to a nameless woman at a nameless bar in a nameless city and the only thing that matters, right now, Debbie thinks, is that he’s singing.

“She told me she is just a fucking singer,” Debbie writes, murmurs along the ink that she’s spilling on her page. “She doesn’t need to be anything else.”

*

“Did you ever want to actually play music?” Lou asks out of the blue. They’re driving along Colorado, I-70 through the Rocky Mountains. There’s a moment of silence as Debbie sifts through the CD’s they’ve got since it’s her turn to pick.

“I do play,” she replies without lifting her eyes from the stack on her lap. “Piano, mostly.”

“Then what’s with all the journalism bullshit?”

Knowing Lou would roll her eyes over it, Debbie stuffs her chosen album in the player. Sure enough, Lou takes a second to face Debbie and look at her like she is too predictable.

“I don’t know,” Debbie shrugs as Lou’s eyes turn back to the road ahead of them, and John Denver sings. It’s easier than explaining. “The heart wants what it wants.”

Shaking her head disbelievingly at Debbie’s cliché, Lou takes one hand off the wheel to turn the music up. “You’ll have to show me one day,” she says, voice so calm and quiet it mingles with John Denver’s.

“What?”

“How you play.”

“Oh, I have to, do I?”

“I’d trade you a secret.”

“You’re already giving them for free, baby.”

Lou sighs, heavy and over-the-top. “I’m a fool.”

*

They stop at a Dairy Queen and Debbie pumps the car full of gas while Lou grabs some snacks. She very nearly misses Lou’s eyes scanning her up and down as she leans with one hand on the side of the car, one hand holding up the gas pump; she only lets herself follow Lou with her eyes when she’s sure Lou’s back is turned to her, and she can’t help but appreciate the sway of her hips, like she knows Lou had appreciated, just seconds ago, Debbie’s stance, which accentuates how long her legs are, and how the muscles in her arms undulate under her skin.

She doesn’t dwell on it, because if there’s something between them, then—Debbie has decided at some point along Utah when Lou opted to play a mix CD she made out of every musician she was ever compared to—there will be nothing between them. This isn’t the kind of stories she tells.

But she can look. And she does, often.

“They ran out of the mint ones,” Lou throws a package of Lemon Oreo’s at Debbie when she’s back. “Also, we ran out of cash.”

“So, what did you do?”

Lou replies with nothing but a wink and a single word, “Drive.”

*

In a different life that’s what Debbie would have done every day. The stealing part included. A life in which she quit early on, disgraced her family’s reputation in a way that would have made her father throw her out of the house instead of just not talking to her. A life in which she and Danny never played recitals together, joined an orchestra, won awards right before Debbie told the truth for the first time ever—that none of that interests her; left and met Amita, whose number Danny slipped in her hand the day she moved out, and who was impressed by Debbie’s meticulously cataloged private album reviews, and had enough connections to get some internet magazine to post some of her more relevant ones.

A life in which she never ground her teeth against the slaps on her hands as her fingers ran, insufficiently precise, over the piano keys. A life in which she never learned to hate music before she fell in love with it all over again.

She still reads about Daniel Ocean, the violin virtuoso of their generation. But it makes her sick.

So, in a different life, she wouldn’t have just looked. In a different life, she would have done this with Lou for the rest of the years they had left.

*

In Las Vegas, Debbie takes Lou to play some cards. Slouched in her chair and with her signature whiskey and a dangling unlit cigarette, Lou raises the bet. Debbie matches.

Turns out, Lou has the magnificent kind of poker face. But Debbie can match.

“Maybe we can win some money,” Lou leans in to tell Debbie after they are done with playing, sitting right outside the Bunkhouse Saloon on the pavement while inside a crappy band makes a lot of noise. Their shoulders bump.

Debbie swings her bottle of beer to her mouth, drowns a good portion of it. “Steal, more like it,” she counters.

“Either way.”

Debbie turns her head. Lou’s looking right back at her, eyes shining, fringe covering them.

“Deborah Ocean,” she sings, voice high, small, crackling; a tune she’s only now inventing. “She’s damned to know a tale from lie, she’ll switch ‘em up to fool you twice.”

“When’d’you write that?” Debbie can’t help it if her voice has turned soft with wonder. 

Lou brings her cigarette to her lips, lowers her eyes as she lights it up. “Last week.”

Through a cloud of smoke, Debbie observes Lou’s slightly flushed cheeks. “What else are you hiding?”

Lou closes her eyes and smiles coyly. Debbie doesn’t get an answer to that.

*

“Joan Jett,” Debbie answers her own question about Lou’s biggest inspiration to date because Lou answered with, “Who do you think?”

They’re both a bit tipsy, in Portland, hair still drying from standing in the rain a little bit too long because Lou insisted on watching a street drummer named Constance play on buckets and cymbals.

“She’s got good energy,” Lou shrugged when Debbie asked her what was so exciting about it.

“And you’re hiring?”

Lou quirked an eyebrow at that. “What if I were?”

“I’d have to get the news out before you tell anybody else.”

“I don’t tell anything to anyone but you.”

Now Lou snorts at her answer. “I knew you’d say that.”

“You can’t blame me.”

The little coffee place they find themselves in is full of whispers of other conversations, and Debbie leans forward to hear Lou better. She’s so used to Lou’s way of lounging in chairs by now, with her whiskey and her cigarette, that she stopped staring at her spread legs weeks ago, but now, with the wine and the smell of rain and the comfort of a well-heated place, Debbie’s eyes drift low, then slowly up, and she blinks at Lou’s little amused smile that has taken a permanent residence on her face in the last ten minutes.

“Come on, guess again,” Lou prompts, and Debbie sighs and considers her next answer. She truly thought Joan Jett would be it. She sighs heavily and tries to weave an answer out of thin air with her hand.

“Madonna.”

“Now you’re just going off the rail.”

“Can you just tell me?”

Lou sips her whisky, twirls her cigarette between her fingers. “Courtney Love.”

Debbie looks at her incredulously. She seems like the kind of person to have grown up angry at Courtney Love, if anything.

“Really,” Lou confirms, sounds incredibly serious for once. “ _Celebrity Skin_ is my favorite album. What’s yours, by the way?”

“Inspiration?”

“Favorite album.”

Debbie opens her mouth to answer that she has never actually considered that when a loud “Yo!” pierces the air, immediately followed by the street drummer they have just watched playing coming to stand by their table.

“I saw you watching me. You’re Lou Miller, that’s dope,” she offers a hand for Lou to shake, unembarrassed and abrupt. Lou winks at Debbie before taking it, as if saying: _I’m not done asking you questions_. Debbie leans back in her chair and nurses her glass of red wine, turning her gaze over to Constance, who is holding a skateboard and vibrating out of her skin with energy.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Lou drawls with a heavier than usual accent and offers Constance a seat next to them. “You’ve got a hell of a style.”

Constance flops down and salutes her thanks to Lou. Then she turns to Debbie.

“Are you like, in the middle of something?” she asks. Debbie’s not sure which one of them she is addressing.

“Practically always,” Debbie answers with a smirk. She’s not sure she can handle a person like Constance and that smirk and tone has always served her well in those situations.

“Ignore her,” Lou interjects. Constance quickly turns her frown away from Debbie and smiles at Lou, big and bright and child-like. Debbie can absolutely fathom why Lou should like the girl, but she cannot offer the same sentiment. “She’s a journalist.”

Constance nods as if that should explain anything. Debbie glares at Lou, who only stretches a leg under the table over to touch Debbie’s.

She spends the rest of the afternoon watching Lou and Constance talking, silent, maybe too caught up in Lou’s eyes whenever they turn to her as if to make sure she hasn’t gotten up and left. Constance has fascinating stories—as only people who spend most of their days in the street can have—that Debbie scribbles down in her notebook for future reference, and Lou listens and laughs and tells Constance about her favorite hours to record songs, because Constance asked.

It’s dark outside when they finally part ways, and as Lou pulls her coat over herself and hides her head below a fluffy hat, she looks over at Debbie, who is doing the same, and asks, “So?”

“So, what?”

“What’s your favorite album? You owe me one answer to every ten questions you ask me.”

Debbie rolls her eyes, pretends to think, rummages through her mind for the first name that might be willing to come up. “ _Nebraska_ ,” is the one, spilling out of her without much resistance, and Lou’s quizzical expression is funny and charming and a little bit breathtaking and Lou says, “Didn’t peg you as a Springsteen kind of girl.” Debbie reaches out to fix Lou’s scarf in place, wants to say something clever but finds she doesn’t know what, besides the truth. Her stomach turns with the thought of telling Lou that Springsteen was the first to show her what there is to love about music, so she doesn’t. “Why _Nebraska_?”

Debbie lets her hands fall back to her side. “It’s just what came to mind,” she says, which is not a lie, but it also doesn’t reveal how the first time she listened to that album she cried alone in her new apartment in her new city and couldn’t stop.

Lou’s eyes linger on her for a moment, then she opens the door for them both, and they walk back to their motel.

*

When Lou opens the night after’s setlist with the familiar chords of Atlantic City, Debbie stops thinking, stops scribbling, listens and stares and listens and she isn’t very familiar with that feeling that creeps up on her as Lou covers the song in a way that is breathtaking, but she knows its name.

Later, Debbie asks: _why Atlantic City?_

Later, Lou shrugs and says: _that’s where we started, isn’t it?_

And Debbie can’t stop Lou’s voice in her head from singing.

*

She realizes there’s an inevitable end to this. That touring is different than what they do every day. That they won’t necessarily stay in touch after or even want each other’s company. That this is a job, that Lou’s possibly not the same at home as she is on the road and she herself is doing exactly what Lou said people like Debbie do: weaving stories that are just stories.

She realizes what they have and what they are is temporary and she realizes she’s getting into her own head, and she knows that if she answers one of Tammy’s emails with “we fucked,” Tammy’s gonna give her a rundown and maybe the cold shoulder for a while and possibly laugh because it’s just so _Debbie_ of her.

She knows.

Yet she says “okay” when Lou says they can share the bed if Debbie doesn’t want to freeze on the floor. Yet she whispers, “You’re incredible to be around,” into the darkness and yet her throat closes when Lou answers with, “I like you here.” Yet she wants that different life she could have had to be this life right now, and she believes herself when she says they can.

They fall asleep and wake up on the far sides of the bed facing each other, stay like that for long minutes, silent, and Debbie wants to reach out, but she knows. Everything is temporary, and love most certainly is the most unstable thing Debbie has known.

But Lou’s voice in her head is still singing.

*

"You know everything about me," Lou tells her with a half-astonished laugh, as if her own words are not formed by her, as if she's in a dream. It's not quite a lie.

Debbie knows about the band back in Australia who used to play at the local bar that let Lou in as an underage girl, about that night their guitarist had thrown his guitar in a fit of rage and how that was Lou's first guitar, which she sold three months later, and then two years after that went to a store and got her surf green Jaguar and how she plays it to this day, and how she only ever tells the first part. That's knowing enough, Lou says, to predict the rest.

There's the story about her first time on stage, where she swears to God her voice over the monitors gave her an out of body experience, and the rose that Lou only sometimes says that the first girl she ever kissed threw to her on stage. She keeps its petals dried in her song book—but that's just in the song that she sings. There is also the story about throwing up in the back alley that night.

There are the drugs—but not as you imagine them; she cries into the microphone when she shreds through her recovery. Debbie knows that she recorded her favorite song off her album at sunrise because she wanted to finish with that goddamn thing.

Lou flicks ash off to the floor, closes her eyes with a smile dancing across her face. "You're a fucking bunker," she goes on. "Read me something."

Debbie clears her throat, flips through her pages. _" She's fascinated more than she is fascinating,_ " she sings to Lou's tune," _or at least, that's what she sings to a crowd of people she's enchanted to believe her. But that's her kind of charm—not self-depreciation, there isn't a hint of scorn to what she plays. Her heart sits in the right place for singers: lodged in her throat, tinting her performances with the quality of truth. That's her kind of charm—a liar. Or at least, that's we she tells me."_

Lou's eyes twinkle at her for a moment too long before she shakes her head, looks down. "You know, the first time I toured, just crappy little places that barely packed ten people each night—I mean, the kind of places where you end up paying for playing at, yeah? Well, I didn't have much to do around the U.S., and didn't have many people more to impress other than the girls who wanted to fuck me."

Debbie runs her fingers over the spine of her notebook, her breath catching in her throat.

"Do you remember the first note you played that had your knees shaking?" she asks. Lou covers them in a cloud of smoke and drowns her whiskey.

"No."

Debbie leans back in her chair and tilts her head back.

"But that's ten," Lou's voice is raw around the edges as it carries over to Debbie's ears. It fits the way she sits so wonderfully, Debbie thinks, sometimes.

"Do you?" Lou asks.

"It was a stupid question."

"I think I need a fuck."

*

They drive. They constantly drive. Sometimes, when Lou falls asleep in the passenger seat and Johnny Cash is playing because that’s what Lou likes hearing when the sun has set, Debbie glances over and lets her heart jump a little to the sight of her before turning back to the road and driving and driving and driving, as if the miles ahead of her could keep her mind blank.

*

"When did you start playing the piano?"

"Too long ago."

And—

"First concert you went to with a reporter badge?"

"Daddy Issues."

And—

"How do you organize the books in your apartment?"

"Color-coded."

And—

"What did you hang on the walls in your office?"

"Nothing."

And—

"The floor's too hard."

"And the mattress is too soft."

"And there isn't a third option here, Goldilocks."

Lou folds her knees, wraps her arms around her shins and watches as Debbie takes out the extra pillows and blankets from the closet. "Suit yourself," she sighs, and then she quietly sings, " L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, que nul ne peut apprivoiser…"

Debbie pretends that she can't hear.

 _Tu crois le tenir, il t'évite, tu crois l'éviter, il te tient_.

*

"Can you help me with this a minute?"

It's the biggest venue they've been in along the way. Chicago's about to freeze but right now, surrounded by velvet drapes and old-fashioned seats and Lou standing in the middle of the emptiness with her guitar and its cable twisting circles on the floor, the echo of her song haunting the space, turning to look at Debbie behind her, you can't feel the cold.

"What?" Debbie looks up to her eyes, shoulders tensing as Lou walks over to the scrappy Grand that's standing near the back of the stage, leans on it and strums the opening chords to what she just played.

" _I don't know what it is about myself, that makes me want to run away, from every home I've ever had…"_ she hums along to it, picking up pace to get to the part she wants. " _I don't know what it is I leave behind, that forces me to turn and look and never hide…"_ she slows, then, stops with lingering notes, sighs in frustration.

"I toss and turn in tangled sheets," she recites. "Between the legs of those I kiss." Strumming again, she sings loud and slightly out of tune. " _And nothing fucking works with this._ "

God, she's beautiful.

Debbie's drawn to her on legs that move without much hesitation, unlike her reeling mind. It can't hurt that much, she thinks, and then has other thoughts.

"What do you need?"

"Play the melody for a bit."

Lou lets her guitar hang over her shoulder and her hands run over the Grand, watching Debbie as she takes her seat and opens it up carefully, unwrapping it almost reverently, says, "I haven't played in years."

They wait, both of them, for Debbie's hands to _do_ something. They tremble and twitch, and Debbie closes her eyes, breathes in and out and then presses a single key. The high C vibrates through the music hall and through her arm. She blinks her eyes open and clears her throat, running scales down the piano.

Bits and pieces make their way from her mind to her fingertips, an assortment of pieces that her muscles will never forget. She doesn't know how recognizable they are like this, but Lou listens, lets her play it out, and then, right before Debbie starts on Lou's melody, she asks, "Play me something you like."

She's as surprised as anyone else to hear Neil Young coming out.

She's as surprised as anyone else when she sings.

" _There is a town in North Ontario, dream comfort memory to spare, and in my mind I still need a place to go, all my changes were there…_ "

It's ridiculous, really, because she's never been a singer. She taught herself to play this song on a drunken night, a lonely night, the kind of night where your own skin feels alienating and remembers that she wasn't very good. But Lou stands there quietly, as Debbie stumbles through to the chorus, and it's ridiculous, really, the jump of her heart when Lou finally joins in with a falsetto.

" _Leaves us helpless, helpless, helpless… Leaves us helpless, helpless helpless…_ "

Her guitar then comes clean and clear, Debbie putting her back into it and Lou plucking high and mesmerizing, carries both their voices under her waves, and it's ridiculous, really, the way Debbie has to abruptly stop.

Silence hangs heavy. The way Lou swallows loud and comes to stand behind her, sliding her guitar to her back, makes Debbie pant. She feels her burning up the space between them.

Then Lou murmurs, " _I want the crumbs to lead me astray, but I can't stop searching for it._ "

Debbie turns, looks up. She knows—she knows all too well what's sitting tight between them right now.

"So, you're good?" she asks.

"Thanks," Lou says, and Debbie gets up as she nods, knows Lou is in her way, lets Lou step closer, lays a hand over her collarbone to stop her just short of pressing herself to Debbie's length.

"Lou," she warns, but it's weak because she can smell Lou now—a scent she realizes has become comforting, become as familiar as her own heartbeat, and Lou's breath is hot and loud, her parted lips a magnetizing mechanism, drawing Debbie in, almost too far.

"What are you so afraid of?" Lou's voice breaks and cracks and barely works at all. They move, synced, flowing and ebbing and Lou is waiting. Waiting for Debbie to make the final decision, waiting for Debbie to let her in, and Debbie almost breaks with how much she wants this.

She gasps and lets her eyes fall shut, clutches at Lou's shirt, says, "I can't." And again, "I can't."

Lou sighs, wraps two palms around Debbie's and untangles her fingers from the shirt, steps back and says, "Sorry." She isn't looking at Debbie when Debbie is finally able to open her eyes, running a hand through her hair and pulling her guitar back to the front.

She wants to tell her, to explain, maybe make Lou argue with her and convince her that this isn't happening just in this alternate reality they've built for themselves. But Lou believes her own lies and Debbie can't let herself believe them too.

She slips out and away without a single word, one last look over her shoulder at Lou just as she starts shredding messily and screams a single "fuck" at the top of her lungs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Lou doesn't look at her throughout the whole gig.

She screws up a couple of lines, laughs it off in that sardonic way of hers, fingers missing their destination as Debbie buries her nose in her notebook and tries not to run off.

The crowd is as ecstatic as it always seems to be, seventy or so people going along with it as if they notice nothing in the wrong—they probably don't. Probably think she's too nervous or too drunk or pulling off a schtick. It's sitting heavy on Debbie's shoulders alone.

She tries not to run, so she crawls out of her skin instead. Listens to Lou singing out of pitch, just long enough for it to matter, and writes it down, and doesn't know what to do with it, because she can't explain.

It's not pleasant. But it only reminds her of why she didn't kiss Lou.

"Thanks for having me," Lou tells the crowd as she shreds the outro of _Home_. Debbie expects her to walk off stage as the metallic nonsense echo behind her, but Lou starts gently strumming in between the mess, clear notes that push through and through to Debbie, puts her mouth back to the microphone; Debbie recognizes the melody, knows the song, doesn't want to hear it but Lou does it anyway, sings quiet and with her heart in her throat in a version that is more pain and less synthesized energy:

_I'm so in love with you, I'll be forever blue, that you give me no reason…_

Stops, clears her throat and silences her guitar completely. Gives a sheepish smile to the crowd, still avoiding Debbie.

"Sleep tight, Chicago."

Then, finally, she walks away. Debbie's heart is pounding at the sides of her head, notebook and pen clutched tightly. She swallows, gets up.

Follows.

"Could have been worse, I suppose, eh?" Lou winks at her as she lights up a cigarette, her equipment all packed up and her fingers twitching around her beer.

Debbie wishes she still smoked, right about now, inhales the smoke that lingers around Lou instead and tries to match her tone to the kind of conversation they are having. But Lou's name catches in her throat, coming out much graver than intended, as if Debbie feels guilty, and that is _absurd_ —Debbie doesn’t do guilt. Especially not when she is right.

"Lou—"

"Don't," Lou cuts her off, turns to her, eyes tired but lips smiling. "Don't apologize."

Debbie blinks, indignant, cuts herself off from attacking Lou for daring to think that _she_ should be the one making apologies when Lou is the one that—

Doesn't matter.

"I wasn't going to."

"So, what were you going for?"

"I'm not sure."

Lou's smile trembles. "Just get me a drink, will you?"

*

A bourbon, neat. Martini with a twist. Another and then another. No one bothers them, thanks to that lone-wolf quality that Lou preserves and projects so well, capable of hiding in plain sight or possibly just intimidating enough that none of the seventy people who just watched her play dare come near her when she sits and stares somewhere far away from Debbie's eyes.

There isn't any poetry to this. There isn't anything that Debbie can read out loud, or write in her head, or try to coax out of Lou. It's ugly. It's ruined.

It's fucking ridiculous that they should even _be_ here. Something bubbles inside of Debbie, as ugly and ruined as the silence between them. She is angry, all the sudden, really angry, that Lou can't see exactly what she does—that Lou can't understand why any of this has always been the worst possible idea, and why should she even try to prove them both otherwise.

They were doing great. They were walking the line just as they should have, and they had it all—professional and intimate and nothing more than that. Now they have lost both. Now they have ugly.

Her head is light and fuzzy and her body heavy and Debbie is absolutely, one hundred percent _pissed_. She shouldn't have let herself get that close, she shouldn't have let Lou get that close, she shouldn't have let them both stand there and almost kiss. She should have drawn the line way before that. She shouldn't have flirted. She shouldn't have gotten carried away.

She should have been just a fucking writer.

And Lou should have been just a fucking singer.

With jittery legs she gets up and grabs her empty glass, asks Lou, clipped, if she wants another round as well, and Lou just slides her glass over, nods and slouches further down in her seat.

But before Debbie can walk away, there's a hand on her forearm, and Lou's looking up at her. "Alright?" she asks, a quizzical expression on her face.

 _No,_ Debbie wants to say, _fuck off._

"Alright," Debbie mumbles, waits patiently until Lou slides her fingers away reluctantly—though by the twitch of the corner of her mouth Debbie assumes she had spotted something on her face—then straightens her back and lifts her chin up as her heels click on the hardwood floor. She is drunk enough to be proud of the way she doesn't wobble.

With no particular intentions besides walking away from Lou for a bit, using the drinks as no more than an excuse, she stands waiting at the bar when a familiar enough face approaches her, and suddenly, Debbie knows, deep in her stomach, that her intentions are about to change.

"Deborah Ocean," he drawls, smirks obnoxiously and leans close enough to her that she can smell his spicy cologne. Claude Becker is one of the biggest names in music journalism these days, and yet she hates every single word he has ever written. She finds him deliberately obtuse when it comes to the subtlety of artists' qualities, and smug about it, too. She finds that he holds an unbearably high ground when it comes to emerging talent, or to things that women write; that he attracts the kind of artists who Debbie does not have the energy to deal with, and in return writes positively only about them. She finds that he is an asshole, the kind she had aspired to be, once upon a time, but cannot stand these days.

She can only assume he is writing about Lou, and she could not be less thrilled about that. And yet, as she turns to face him, the certainty that she is about to do something only grows.

"Becker," she greets him in return, snappish and cruder than necessary, eyes scanning the way his suit hugs his form.

He had tried, once, when Debbie was nothing but another girl trying to get into the business. Debbie was almost tempted but got pulled away by Tammy, who had warned her about Becker's methods. He has connections that most can only dream about, and he flaunts his power to change careers, and he fools people, and he is the biggest schmuck in the industry.

But things are different now, aren't they? Debbie is working on what is supposed to be a revitalizing cover story, spending months on the road with Lou Fucking Miller, and Becker is starting to be called irrelevant. There isn't anything to take advantage of, for any of them, and Becker is as hot as he is stupid, and Debbie wants to fuck somebody, something, wants Lou but cannot do that with Lou, and that thing that reared its head inside her chest is telling her that this will make both Lou and her understand.

Understand that when something is meaningless it can't hurt, but you cannot play around with things that mean something. You cannot cross lines with things that mean something. You cannot wager things that mean something.

Meaningless, though—meaningless is everything that Debbie needs. She never could resist meaningless.

Fifteen minutes later, Lou watches them leave the place, an unlit cigarette dangling between her fingers, swirling the bourbon in her glass, locking eyes with Debbie as Debbie watches her, one arm around Claude Becker's waist.

*

They drive.

With two more weeks and nothing more left, they drive in silence, Debbie watching the road ahead of them and nothing else as Lou puts a top 40 station on and lets it play until they reach their next stop, and the next, and the next, and then Pittsburgh.

Around them, the sun shines brighter. Around them, flowers start to bloom, and the roads fill with more people, driving just like them towards an intangible destination. When they stop for gas, Debbie still watches Lou, but the only thing that simmers now tastes bitter, and Debbie doesn't want it anymore—wants it gone, wants her cold hands and cold heart back.

The morning they left Chicago, Lou seemed like she did not sleep at all. Debbie couldn't say that she herself did, either. Her head had been pounding where she lay beside Claude, her back to him and her fist holding the blanket tightly; there wasn't any regret in her. Debbie doesn't do regrets. There wasn't much else left in her, either.

Being drunk is no excuse, and she knew exactly what she did, still knows, still wouldn't think twice before repeating the same—no, not a mistake. That wasn't a mistake. Doing this whole thing with Lou to begin with was. Not even that. It's just what it is. Just her, and Lou, and things that were and will never be again.

"Ready to go?" Lou asked her, and Debbie fixed her hair in the mirror before nodding with a weak, "Yeah," and following Lou to the parking lot.

Driving is the only thing left still the same, it seems, but there isn't much more driving left to do.

"Take the bed," Lou says as they throw their stuff in their room in Pittsburgh.

Debbie searches for her eyes, a lump heavy in her throat—finds only Lou's back.

"Thanks."

She doesn't do regrets. She doesn't think in terms of mistakes. There isn't much left, here, isn't much left ahead—just emptiness. Just meaningless. Just the way Debbie likes.

*

The morning brings sunlight on their bare shoulders. They walk to a diner, eat breakfast. Debbie asks nothing more than technical questions: _two months on the road, countless gigs and countless people—what's next? Is Lou Miller going to rest, or is there an album on the line?_

_Some people have been asking about certain collaborations that I don't want to name, but can we expect any sort of collaboration in your next step?_

The tape recorder sits between them as they talk, working. Debbie sips her coffee and Lou chews her gum and as Debbie looks up from her notes, meets Lou's eyes, bright and with more depth than she's ever seen in them before. Debbie's tongue slips, forces words she didn't intend to utter but now it is too late.

"Do you ever get tired of being you?"

"Only when I have to do it." They stare at each other for the first time in long days, still and heavy and then—"That's ten," Lou says, crosses her arms.

Debbie's throat works as she asks: "Is there anything in your life that led you here that you'd change?"

"That's ten," Lou repeats, her leg jumping under the table. "So, you tell me."

Debbie flips her notebook shut, turns the recorder off. She puts everything back in its place as Lou watches her patiently, and Debbie knows she won't give up on their deal even now. She finishes tidying up their table and leans back in her seat, looks outside the window at the cars that go slowly by, the shops full of people going in and coming out repeatedly, the people just making their way down the street—she could have been a nobody here, just passing by Pittsburgh, just visiting, just living here.

"I have no regrets," she concludes. Lou hums, sticks her gum on the saucer of her cup, gulps her coffee down and fishes her wallet out of her pants pocket.

"See you tonight," she says, lips a thin line as she dons her jacket and walks away from Debbie, who stays seated, watching as Lou's figure mingles with the random people on the street.

*

_She's a pain in the ass._

_She's insufferable._

_She is as relentless in her life as she is in her music._

_She is the best goddamn person I have ever met and I cannot stand to tell her goodbye, and I cannot stand to watch her go, and I cannot possibly tell her to stay._

As Lou puts down her Surfer Green Fender and picks up D'Angelico, Debbie closes her eyes, wants to crawl out of her skin when Lou begins playing an all too familiar melody and humming along.

 _Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together,_ Debbie remembers her soothing voice that first night, symbolic and all too prophetic; remembers how soundly she slept listening to it; remembers how Lou didn't argue about the bed and smiled and played her a song.

"A long time ago," she tells the crowd as she strums on her guitar just as beautifully as she did in their room in Atlantic City, "I sat down in a motel room, having no idea how long I would actually be on the road, and where I would end up. I hope to leave you here tonight with the same deep joy to be alive I felt just then."

The crowd cheers and Debbie lets Lou's voice wash over her.

" _Cathy I said as we boarded a greyhound in Pittsburgh, Michigan seems like a dream to me now…"_

She leaves.

*

Debbie walks. The night air expands her lungs and chest as she does so, letting her feet carry her wherever they may lead; ends up on Grandview Avenue, on top of Mount Washington and finds a quiet corner.

Pittsburgh shines almost as bright as New York, it's just the magic that was in New York when she was a child that's lacking. But that's neither here nor there.

Pulling her phone out, Debbie's thumbs shake as she types Danny's name, scrolls down through news pages and reads just the headlines. _Daniel Ocean to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic next season / Daniel Ocean speaks about the move to Europe / Daniel Ocean speaks about estranged sister—_

She wonders if Lou knows, has done her research just as much as Debbie. She wonders if Danny cares what she's doing now, or if, just like their dad, he doesn't even think of her. She wonders if sometimes he sees her name on the homepage of an online music magazine and if her name stings just as much as his does.

She wonders if one day, she will walk up to him, pen behind her ear and notebook in hand, and ask him what it's like to be an Ocean.

Lou's name appears on her screen, and Debbie slides her away in a heartbeat.

"Fuck," she breathes down the hill, let's the word roll all over the city below her.

 _She's like Orpheus,_ she thinks, _and I am Eurydice. She had turned to look. She had turned to look, and I cannot follow her anymore._

*

In their room, Lou sits on the floor, a bottle of bourbon by her side, a bunch of pages spread over her lap. Debbie closes the door behind her, unnecessarily careful with it, runs a hand through her hair and knows that Lou is going to tell her—tell her that she doesn't understand how she can fuck Claude Becker in the same breath as she almost kisses Lou and walks away; confront her, ask her, demand something from her and Debbie will have to confront her, too, won’t she? Because that's how things work, don't they?

Someone breaks, and something breaks, and then everything surfaces.

But before Debbie can turn to do what she must, Lou says his name, "Daniel Ocean," voice low and serene. "Brother?"

"Yeah," Debbie says, hand gripping the handle of the door. "Son of Frank Ocean."

"The composer."

"Yeah."

"Guess I understand the piano now."

"We used to be a hell of a duo at Julliard."

"Do you talk, sometimes?"

"Not since the last time I saw him play."

"And your dad?"

Debbie snorts. "My dad would be caught dead before he'd forgive me."

"For what?"

"Leaving."

She doesn't know when Lou got up, but there is hand on her back now, and Debbie exhales long and hard, can smell Lou and the alcohol on her breath and the cigarettes she smokes on her clothes and she wants nothing more than to bury herself in Lou's chest.

"I should be fucking furious with you, you know?" Lou muses as she rubs Debbie's shoulders. "I think you hate Claude Becker just as much as I do."

"Yeah."

"I am, a bit. Furious."

"I know."

"I also meant what I said, in Chicago."

"I meant what I said, too."

"I want to show you."

"Yeah."

"But you won't let me, will you?"

"We part ways in three days."

"We don't have to."

"We do."

They stay standing in the dark, by the door, until Debbie feels like she can let the handle go. Until Lou says, "Come to bed."

Until they crawl under the covers in their clothes and Debbie says, "I'm sorry."

And Lou says, "Yeah, me too."

*

New York is just as Debbie remembered it. Tempting, crowded, a dream and a nightmare. High hopes and high buildings and everything that Debbie could-have-been-but-never-was. Danny was here just last week. He is in Europe now.

"I am exhausted," Lou says as she warms up for the show, stretches, falls back in her chair with a groan. "I hate touring."

"You don't seem like it, in the moment?"

"Well, now I can see the end, and I would like to just…" she sighs, can't find the right word as she tries to weave it out of thin air, throws her head back. "I just need to think. Have time to think."

"Tomorrow you're a free woman once again."

"The more music I make, the less free I am, it seems."

Debbie cannot help but smile at that. "I know the feeling."

Lou raises her head, grins at Debbie. "There's your story right there."

Debbie winks at her, doesn't answer. Lou's full of bullshit, sometimes. But that's not her story, either.

But right now, she looks at Lou, with her spread legs and her neck stretched back and her hands playing air guitar. Tomorrow, they say goodbye.

So right now, the story doesn't matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs appearing on here:
> 
> a little respect - erasure  
> america - Simon & garfunkel


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well folks, this is it! hope you enjoy. it's been a ride, for me, personally. i love this fic. thank you to everyone who read, left kudos and commented!!

Lou’s voice crackles over the speakers. The quality is far from optimum. Debbie knows for a fact that Lou hates when people watch her this way on the internet yet has no desire to tell people off for doing so. The crowd moves and the camera phone moves with it, Lou’s figure on the stage blurring out and coming into focus again, and when the crowd cheers Debbie cringes. She can understand Lou—the nuance of her music is somewhat diminished when projected on YouTube by a person who barely bothered to change the automatic settings on their phone. But there is a charm, there, too (could anything about Lou not be charming, at this point?). The affability of her comes through the screen; the energy of her, as well. It all feels like being in a basement watching someone who you’d never think would go big, about two years before they do, and loving every moment of it. It all makes you wish you were there, but maybe that’s just Debbie, missing the road, missing the gigs, missing being right in the middle of it all. Nostalgic.

“Deb!” Tammy’s voice cuts over one of Lou’s little speeches that Debbie could repeat by heart.

She pauses the video, and—still distracted by Lou posing only somewhat ironically with her guitar, frozen on Debbie’s screen—calls back, “Yes?”

Her office door has been open all this time, and the rest of the staff could no doubt hear her watching low-quality videos of Lou Miller on YouTube, but this is a music magazine, and she is about to submit her cover story about Lou Miller—there really is nothing unique about her doing so. Never mind that this has nothing to do with her writing, they have no way of knowing that. Besides reading her writing.

“I need someone to review Soccer Mommy. It's right up your goddamn alley, do you want it?”

“Remind me when that is?”

“March.”

“Sure.”

Hovering over the paused video with the cruiser, Debbie sighs and closes the tab, opens the document she’s working on.

_If you asked, Lou Miller would tell you that she is nothing more than just a fucking singer…_

She writes for hours. No music, no calls, no breaks. She wants a cigarette, she thinks, at times, as she describes the way Lou holds hers; she needs a drink, she thinks, at others, as she describes Lou sipping from hers. She can feel Lou, she can smell her, she can hear her music over and over in her head. Writing and rewriting, she relives Lou—her countenance, her walk, her smile. Her fumbling with a microphone or shredding on her guitar. She remembers the feeling of being, well, Lou’s for those months on the road. She remembers it all too well. Lou singing, Lou laughing, Lou turning her electric guitar into so much more than that with her pedalboard creativity. Lou singing like she is so much more than just a fucking singer, and how can she ever believe herself when that’s the stuff she says?

By the time she turns off the lights in her office and shuts the door behind her, the rest of the staff have long been gone. Except for Tammy, apparently, who is waiting for her at the exit to the street, smoking a cigarette she isn’t supposed to be smoking.

“Next issue is stressing you out?” Deb comes to a halt by her, her blazer hanging off her forearm. She likes the chill, sometimes. Clears her head.

Tammy nods, exhales, staring at the distance. Debbie can mark down the days on the calendar when Tammy would smoke. “You know the online thing I can handle, but I think we’ll have to stop printing soon.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I know that’s what you love but honestly, I’m not sure how much longer we can go on with that.”

Debbie watches her crashing the butt of the cigarette under her heel, offers a supporting smile when Tammy turns to look at her. “Have a drink with me,” she tries, though the answer is usually no. Tammy has a family. Tammy loves her family. Tammy isn’t Debbie, with her walls of loneliness and vinyls on repeat and hips of mess all around a tiny apartment. She likes Tammy. She can be a pain in the ass, for sure, but she is also open and heartfelt in a way that (once Debbie's gotten used to it) is endearing. There’s something instantly maternal about her—and maybe Debbie just needed a friend like that. Either way.

Tammy considers her for a moment then wraps a hand around her shoulders and stirs them both towards their favorite bar.

“Wow,” Debbie says, deadpanned. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Oh, shut up. We go sometimes.”

“Rarely.”

“Guilt-tripping? Really?”

“Just honesty.”

They walk about ten minutes—Tammy mostly blowing steam off about work, Debbie rolling her eyes because for every time Tammy says she should quit, there are ten times she says she loves her job. “But,” she finishes her breakdown over the next printed issue, “the cover is going to be unparalleled, isn’t it?” 

They stop at the entrance to the bar, Tammy smiling expectantly at Debbie.

“Yeah,” Debbie says, and her throat is tight for a reason she doesn’t care to think about.

Tammy opens the door for her and sighs dramatically. “My Savior.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’m just writing for you.”

They sit at the bar, order their drinks and turn to look at each other, ignoring the way the bartender is not-so-conspicuously listening in as they talk. It’s pretty empty tonight, Debbie can’t blame him for being bored. She sips her martini while Tammy gulps down her beer and looks around, her chest tightening with memories—Lou nursing her signature whiskey, the interviews over casual coffees, the off-the-record conversations that shaped this piece in her head more than anything else.

“You look different,” Tammy tells her, eyebrows knitted and head tilted slightly to the side as if Debbie is off-center.

She clears her throat. “Nothing’s different.”

“I mean, you are about to publish our biggest cover story in recent history and be catapulted into journalist fame, but nothing’s different, sure.”

Debbie laughs a little at that, manages to take a joke. But she feels heavy ever since Lou departed and she doesn’t want to say it out loud. So she smiles her little impish smile, winks. “No, nothing’s different.”

Tammy rolls her eyes. “You told me nothing about her, you know?”

“Who?”

“Lou Miller. You usually have too many things to say about a person after an interview, and you’ve spent months on the road with her.”

There are so many difficult words on the tip of Debbie’s tongue that she’s afraid everything will all come tumbling down faster than she can control herself. The olives in her martini come as an aid against that, and Debbie keeps the facade up as she answers with a full mouth. “You’re just gonna have to read about it.”

Tammy leans an elbow on the counter and examines her skeptically. Debbie swirls the remaining olives in her drink, keeps her gaze leveled with Tammy’s. “What’s really going on, Deb?” Tammy asks, finally, her voice softer than ever before. Debbie’s not used to being handled carefully. 

What is she supposed to say? That she’s angry at Tammy when she’s lying in bed at night because Lou isn’t there, and she wants Lou there, and that’s all Tammy’s fault for making her do this? That she’s scared senseless that she’s made the biggest mistake of her life not letting Lou kiss her but she’s scared senseless that admitting it would be an even bigger mistake? She can’t say any of that. She can’t let Tammy know what’s _really_ going on because Tammy—well, she has no idea what Tammy would do, and maybe that’s the problem. She can’t tell Tammy what’s really going on because she has no way of predicting Tammy’s reaction, has no way of preparing her answer to it.

She can’t tell Tammy what’s really going on because she doesn’t know herself. She can’t tell Tammy what’s really going on because even if she could name it, she has no idea what she wants from it. She can’t Tammy what’s really going on because that would be admitting that she doesn’t just miss the road, she misses _Lou_.

“Nothing’s going on, Tam,” she insists. It’s not even half a lie—nothing is going on because she did not let anything happen, nothing is going on as long as she keeps insisting that nothing is going on. Speak truth into existence. Language creates reality.

Tammy raises two completely unbelieving eyebrows, gives Debbie a chance to retract her statement before turning back to her beer. Debbie keeps playing with the olives in her own drink, staring at the swirling clear liquid. When the silence slides too deep under her skin she clears her throat.

“I have the draft ready.”

“Send it over tomorrow morning?”

“Of course.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

Debbie drops the olives, sighs. Somehow, Tammy is always just _almost_ right.

“No.”

“Good, because that crosses a line for me, ethically speaking.”

Debbie doesn’t reply. Tammy shifts in her chair, turning her body fully towards Debbie, and Debbie recognizes this tell by now—there’s a shift in the conversation coming, too. Tammy’s body language speaks volumes, more than anybody else Debbie knows. Except for Lou, maybe.

“Did you want to?” Tammy’s voice is so sincere that Debbie almost gets up to leave as fast as she can. Her heart hammering in her chest, she thinks about Lou’s sway and arms and neck, about her lips mere millimeters away, about her scent and her fingers and her voice, about her eyes glimmering on stage and her raspy laughter when Debbie told a particularly bad joke, about Vegas, and Atlantic City. She thinks about the car rides and the feeling deep in her gut that she should stay by Lou’s side. She wants to leave because she always wants to leave, but she finds that she can’t; she finds the words slipping out—an admittance of defeat, a truth.

“I think I’m in love with her.”

“Is she…?”

Debbie laughs, entirely joyless and pathetically short. “She tried.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran.”

“Why?”

Debbie shakes her head. “I don’t know anymore.”

Tammy whistles, long and harsh. Debbie deserves it. “Can I be honest with you, Debs?” she asks, though she doesn’t wait for an answer and adds “You hurt yourself like this more than anyone else could ever hurt you.”

Debbie’s hand trembles on the counter; she drums her fingers in an inconsistent rhythm to hide it. “What are you on about?”

“I’m on about you thinking everything’s gonna end up like the business with your family did. Let yourself be happy even if it doesn’t last.”

“Easy for you to say. Yours lasts.”

“So, what? You’re gonna be alone forever because your heart might break?”

Debbie swallows, her throat too dry. “I don’t know.”

Tammy groans, bangs her head against the counter playfully. “You’re an idiot, Deborah,” she declares, but Debbie can hear that she is fond of her nonetheless. Debbie can take comfort in that, at least; even if she can’t wrap her head around doing anything else, she can always be Tammy’s friend.

They stay a little while longer.

*

She and Tammy have four back-and-forths with the article. Edits, questions, arguments (because she lets Debbie argue, and Debbie has never stepped down from doing that). Tammy says nothing about their previous conversation, but Debbie can hear it in her hesitation about certain sentences, certain words that Debbie have felt are revealing just as much as Tammy is reading into them. But she lets it slide, and Debbie’s frustration mounts above the silence in a way that she cannot grasp. Why would it matter?

They have three separate email threads discussing it, but eventually, it is out of Debbie’s hands. She feels the empty air around her fingers moving when she takes a walk around the block, clearing her head, forcing herself to not send another email about it to Tammy, or worse yet, call her, or worse yet, storm into her office trying to form the right words that she does not have.

She has nothing to keep her busy now (that is a lie, but nothing is enough), nothing to keep her mind off the fact her hands are empty. Her fingers twitch, searching for Lou. It’s been months. It’s been horrible.

She could call her.

Or she could just move on.

Does she want to?

*

“Excited?” Tammy asks, showing Debbie the cover design. Lou stands, beautiful and tall and way too polished, smiling coyly with her guitar in hand and a twinkle in her eyes, behind shreds of Debbie’s words. Debbie inhales, closes her eyes. _If you’d asked, Lou Miller would tell you she is just a fucking singer…_

“A bit,” she tries to sound blasé but she knows, she knows Tammy can see right through her.

_But she only fools herself._

*

She walks home, cell clutched in her hand, focuses on the breeze that hits her skin, on the people walking around her and barely notice her; she has always been good at noticing more than she is noticed, a skill that has come to her advantage many a time, reading into people like she does. Focuses on the trees and birds and the clouds that are accumulating slowly and surely. It might rain. 

On a red light, she types: saw the cover today. you look good.

Then deletes, and types again: story out soon. looks good.

She presses send and turns her cell face down between her fingers.

As she crosses the road, it vibrates and dings. She forces herself to count to ten before looking.

Lou’s reply is short and unreadable.

_send me a copy sometime._

She walks around her house for thirty minutes before going in.

*

It’s been light for barely thirty minutes when her cell rings, loud and insistent, but Debbie’s been awake for an hour now already. She stares at the caller ID, sitting up in her bed, her room basked in the dim, early-hours sun. The device vibrates in her hand, and its screen strong blue light hurts her eyes, but she delays picking up just until the last moment. There is no reason for Lou to not be calling. But there is also no reason for her to be calling.

“Hey, there, rock star,” she says in an attempt at her usual levity (not that she has shown any of that in their last weeks together), hoarse in a way that she cannot control. She stayed up wishing Lou would say more than that single text. But she didn’t expect it to happen. Lou laughs distantly on the other end of the line, and by the sound of it, Debbie knows she isn’t simply far, but far, far away from Los Angeles. Though why wouldn’t she be? She told Debbie she’s planning on recording somewhere distant from America, and maybe she is already there; maybe she is still in her apartment in Brooklyn. Los Angeles is not somewhere Lou would be near to on any given day.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No. Why?”

“You sound… Never mind. You’re up just at your usual hour.”

Debbie cannot help the little smile at the corner of her mouth. That Lou still keeps her usual schedule in mind is not something that she thought would make her heart flutter, but here she is. “Have you been waiting for 6 am to call me?”

“I’m not admitting to anything.”

“Where are you?”

“Nashville.”

“What are you doing in Nashville?”

Silence. Lou breathes in, out. It’s not a complicated question, and Debbie can’t fathom why Lou would be nervous to answer it. But she listens for sounds other than Lou’s breath, waits, her heart awake with the memory of Lou’s breath on her skin. Then, Lou speaks in a hushed tone, emotion dripping out of it into Debbie’s ear. “You still owe me one before you ask any more questions, Ocean.”

Debbie’s heart thumps-thumps-thumps. “You’re still counting?”

“Yeah, I’m still counting.”

The conversation is flowing in a way that Debbie did not expect when she picked up, and the heaviness between them is something else entirely to the uncomfortable weight Debbie remembers. She doesn’t know if it’s just her, her admittance to herself, or if it’s something that has changed about Lou. The thought of that makes her chest crumble like an avalanche. Maybe she is imagining it. Maybe nothing is actually different.

But then why does she not know how to respond?

“So…” Lou nudges her, uncertainty coloring her tone in a way it never has. She _is_ nervous. “Can I ask my question?” 

Debbie nods before verbalizing her weak agreement. Lou’s uncharacteristic nervousness confuses Debbie even more and makes her feel lost; about the call and what to make of it, about herself and what Lou still feels or doesn’t feel. About what she wants to do right now. Even when they almost kissed, even when Debbie turned her down, even when Debbie hurt her—Lou has never been a nervous person. Not one that sounds like it.

“You said there was this place in Nashville I should check out when I’m there.”

“Mickey’s Tavern.”

“Right. Said I’d fit right in like I’ve lived there my whole life.”

“Did I?”

“Memory’s fading?”

Debbie laughs a little, relieved to hear Lou starting some banter. The tension was rising too high. “Getting older.”

“It’s only been a few months.”

“Time works in mysterious ways.”

“That’s God.”

“Is it?”

Lou falls quiet again. Debbie suddenly wishes she could see her, see if she’s smiling or rolling her eyes or bored, wants to run fingers along her jawline, wants to pull her in and—

“So what are you doing in Nashville?” She asks. Now it’s Lou that owes her ten answers.

“Passing on my way.”

“Your way where?”

“You’ll hear about it soon enough, I’m sure.”

“No more exclusive access, huh?”

“No more.”

Debbie bites her lip, not sure what exactly will come out but sure enough that it's not something that should come out. Her throat closes up tight, fighting the words alongside her, and she can barely even breathe until Lou speaks again:

“I miss you, Debs.”

The words are steady and spread warmth through her. She hears Lou sighing, and her own grip on the cell tightens. She didn’t expect this. She didn’t expect that hearing it will make her feel...happy? Is this what she’s feeling?

She didn't expect Lou to take another step towards her after all the times Debbie had let her down. But she finds that she has no need to run off now, that she has no need to hide from Lou. Finds that the confession gives her more confidence instead of making her anxious. Maybe she has spent too many weeks missing Lou, too. Maybe she is tired enough, finally, to not fight herself over this. 

She wants Lou here.

“I…” she tries, but words won’t come out. Before she can try again, Lou cuts her off.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she rushes to clarify. Debbie’s not sure what it means, if she’s upset, if she’s disappointed. A part of her can breathe again and another is mortified because she _wants_ to say something. She runs a hand through her hair, frustrated by herself, tugs at it a little. Why can’t she just fucking speak?

“Lou, I—”

But it takes her way too long.

“You really don’t,” Lou says again, gentle, this time, and maybe she understands. “But…” She hesitates. Debbie’s heart leaps in anticipation. Maybe she understands. _But._ “We’ll talk?” Lou asks, her voice rising at the edge of the question just enough to let Debbie know that she is hopeful.

Debbie swallows, her agreement coming out rough. She clears her throat. “Yeah. Yes. We’ll talk.” She might be too enthusiastic for her own sake, but if she can’t actually tell Lou what she wants to tell her, that would do.

Lou exhales, laughs a little nervously. “Alright.”

“Alright.”

They stay on the line, quiet, refusing to say goodbye. Debbie won’t, she has decided. She would sit in silence with Lou forever if that is what it takes for her to tell Lou she loves her. But they do have lives to live, and so Debbie is grateful that Lou is strong enough to let her go. Like the first time they’ve ever spent a night in each other’s company, Lou’s words are promising. “Have a good day, Debbie Ocean.” Her voice lingers on Debbie’s skin, and she closes her eyes, smiles a little.

Her chest tightens then expands. “You too, Lou Miller.”

They hang up. Debbie rolls over on her back, sprawls far and wide and stares at the ceiling. She’s terribly anxious for a brief moment before taking a deep breath, letting joy spread through her limbs. She… She did something, didn’t she? Generated a sliver of hope for them? Maybe she can live like this. Maybe Tammy is right. Maybe this—this...lightness, is worth it. She wants Lou here, and she can admit it. She wants Lou here, with her, and for some fucking reason, Lou wants that, too, it seems. She wants to kiss Lou, doesn’t she? Yes, she does. She wants to sing that. She feels like a teenager.

It doesn’t matter when they’ll meet again, when they’ll talk again. Not right now. 

“ _And you are_ , _to me,_ ” she hums the tune that Lou had told her is her favorite of hers, and she thinks she knows why, now. “ _What the sea is to the shore… Cover me and I… will always wait for more.”_

She keeps humming as she takes her run, her shower, on the way to the office. Keeps humming all day long, and Tammy winks at her and smiles.

*

They put the cover up with a few quotes as a teaser, and Debbie logs off the internet as she does with every big release of something she has made. She cannot stand any comments on her work, cannot stand the dread that comes with putting something of herself out there. So she puts her phone aside though she very much wants to know if Lou will see, has seen, knows. Very much wants to know what Lou has to say about it. Very much wants to know if when Lou said they’ll talk she meant at a time such as this, because they haven’t, not since she called Debbie from Nashville.

But she puts her phone aside, shuts her laptop, picks up Joan Didion’s _The White Album_ and immerses herself in it, legs up on her chair, her office door shut—everybody knows the drill by now. 

Except one third through the book, her office door is knocked on. Debbie ignores it, but when another knock comes, louder, now, she calls out: “I don’t want to know!”

“Alright,” Lou’s voice comes from behind it, amused more than anything else, and Debbie holds herself back from leaping to her feet. She looks up. “Should I go?” Lou asks, teasing.

“No,” is Debbie’s immediate reaction, said sharply and with a hint of urgency. That makes Lou laugh a little.

“Can I come in, then?”

Debbie takes a deep breath. “Yeah, it’s open.”

Lou steps in, light steps and an easy stance, and shuts the door behind her; stands with her back to Debbie by the door, hand on the handle, the other running down the back of her neck before turning around to face Debbie. She hooks her thumbs in her pockets, pops her gum. Debbie swallows. It’s like they’ve never said goodbye.

“Tammy said this might happen,” Lou says, eventually.

“You’ve met, then, huh?”

“Signed my own cover story and everything.”

“Peaked at it, as well, I assume.”

“How could I not?”

“And?”

“I still don’t _get_ you.”

“But the story?”

“ _You’re_ the story, Debs.”

Debbie lays her book on the table, clears her throat and pretends to organize her sticky notes. Lou steps farther into her office. Debbie’s heart thumps in her chest, but she has no idea how to proceed. What does Lou want her to say? What does Lou want her to do? She thought if Lou would be near her again, she might have the answers to how to do this. But she still doesn’t.

“And you’re just a fucking singer,” she sighs. Looks up at Lou to see her smiling.

“I love what you did with that fucking line.”

Debbie laughs a little, letting as much tension as she can go. She waves her hand around the room. “This is a family friendly office.”

“Sure it is.”

They stare at each other, Debbie taking Lou’s presence in, drinking it in, devouring it in her mind. Lou waits, pops her gum. 

“So what are you doing here?” Debbie wonders.

“Stopping by.”

“Where are you going?”

“Iceland. Some peace of mind.”

“Recording?”

“Writing. Then we’ll see. But, um, you forgot your, um, in my car…” Lou reaches to her back pocket, pulls out a slip of newspaper. “Didn’t want to leave you without it.”

Debbie can see just enough of the granulated picture of Danny to look away. “Thanks.”

Lou lays it on her table, nods. “Sure.”

“All the way here just for this?”

They lock eyes. “Yeah.”

Something tightens and snaps within Debbie’s chest. Something feels free. Lou’s eyes glimmer at her. Her voice drops to a whisper, her throat dry, her legs shaking just a bit when she rises from her seat. "Do you know what's funny?" she asks, tries to play it off as cool but all things considered, she couldn’t possibly. She couldn’t possibly play it cool with Lou any fucking longer.

Lou waits, but Debbie needs her to drag the answer out of her. One last push. One last tug.

When she does it, her voice is nothing but hopeful, and Debbie’s heart leaps higher than it ever has. “Tell me what is funny.”

“If you’d tried to kiss me right now,” Debbie begins, swallows, breathes, looks into Lou’s eyes. “I’d let you.” She finds it harder than she thought it would be to say the words out loud, finds the air in her body impossibly light. Lou exhales, long and loud, her body leaning unconsciously towards Debbie’s. Debbie takes another step towards Lou, in her office with the door shut and the faint sounds of clusters of music mixing into nothing. “I’d want you to.”

Lou says her name, barely above a whisper. The pause is heavy, heavy with possible futures.

“Yeah?” Debbie prompts, her blood buzzing through her body. 

Lou reaches out, closes the gap still left between them and pulls Debbie to her. They’re unbearable close, and yet, Lou waits.

“What are you really doing here?” Debbie murmurs in between them, Lou’s scent enveloping her. She pushes memories back, wants this as a clean slate.

“Wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

They sway. Debbie knows she’s being unbearable, knows she should be the one closing the last gap, but her body tingles with how wonderful it is to stand here, just stand, and not want to disappear.

“Can you just fucking—” Lou chokes out, then, hand clasping Debbie’s shirt, and before she can finish, Debbie sighs, says “come here.”

And then they’re kissing.

It’s slow and careful, at first, Lou moaning lightly into it as their lips touch, wet and soft. And then Debbie can’t take it anymore, slides a hand up to Lou’s neck, tilts her head, knees buckling as Lou takes the hint and deepens the kiss, licks her way into Debbie’s mouth.

“Deb,” Lou marvels when they break up for air, two hands messing Debbie’s mane, but Debbie can’t let her go just yet, holds Lou tight and close and dives back in with just enough breath in her to pant as Lou nibbles on her lower lip.

“Fuck,” she gasps when the back of her knees hit her table and Lou’s thigh finds its place between hers. “Stop, stop,” she hurries to order, scrambles to balance herself before Lou can push her up on the table and mess her papers up. Lou groans, buries her head in the crook of Debbie’s shoulder, primal and messy and beautiful. “Sorry,” Debbie adds, regrettably willing to hold her ground on not possibly having sex in her office.

Lou kisses a line up her neck, to her jaw, to the corner of her mouth. “‘Salright,” she murmurs, kisses Debbie again, her lips never leaving Debbie’s skin. Debbie breathes in and out shakily, brings up a hand to hold onto Lou’s hip.

 _This feels good,_ she thinks. Can’t stop thinking it. Runs her hands over Lou’s back, breathes her in, closes her eyes and lets the sensation of Lou’s lips wash over her. _This feels good._

“I can’t believe you,” Lou speaks against Debbie’s collarbone, teeth scraping at the jaunty skin there lightly.

“Hmm?”

“All these months together and all you needed was to be away.”

“Isn’t this how it works? You try once, you go your separate ways, someone comes in with a big romantic gesture and the other finally, finally…” she hooks a finger under Lou’s chin, brings her up to kiss her lips. “Finally realizes how stupid they’ve been.”

“Now, that’s just dumb,” Lou mumbles amusedly into their kiss. They linger, and linger, and linger. “What changed?”

“I’m not sure. Me.”

Lou tucks a strand of hair behind Debbie’s ear, kisses her forehead. “Come to Iceland.”

“And do what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“For a while.”

“And then what?”

Lou draws back, smiles open and raw. “You’re the storyteller. You tell me.”

**Author's Note:**

> a list of songs appearing here:
> 
> America by Simon & Garfunkel  
> I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You by Tom Waits  
> Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen  
> L'amour Est Un Oiseau Rebelle from Carmen  
> Helpless by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
> 
> if you want to get Lou's general vibe i made a playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/asexualizing/playlist/1tOcCGLtSgNK7ubW5ONMDt?si=CgBnhaL2TMWwWy_uFyA_3g)
> 
> i am also on [tumblr](https://straperine.tumblr.com/)


End file.
